Social Watch news

Workshop. (Photo: CARDET).

The main problem with the MDGs, globally, is that the overall approach towards development they represent is quite narrow, limiting countries’ incentives to institute structural changes that would foster development.

This is particularly evident in the case of Goal 2: ‘Achieve Universal Primary Education,’ which excludes economically active people in developing countries who are in need of further education, re-skilling or vocational training. Using the case of Cyprus, we can examine how the Lifelong Learning strategy it adopted made the link between LLL and sustainable development, and ask whether the Cyprus model provides a potential model for developing countries in the post-MDG agenda.

High-level Panel of Eminent
Persons on the Post-2015
Development Agenda.
(Photo: NGLS)

A group of Southern NGOs, led by DAWN, ANND and Social Watch, is gathering signatures in order to send this letter in the coming days to the members of the High Level Panel that is advising the UN on the content of a future Agenda for Development post-2015. To add your signature to the letter please write to socwatch@socialwatch.org.

Here is the map of the complicated road towards a development agenda post 2015.

Check out this visual from The Broker that shows which actors play a role in the Post-2015 process and provides links for further information.

In a highly publicized speech, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim announced in April that the new "highly ambitious" target of his institution will be "ending extreme poverty in the world by 2030." He said that developing countries have “a chance -- for the first time ever -- to end extreme poverty within a generation." Yet, that same goal was set 40 years ago by then World Bank president Robert McNamara and the target date was the year 2000. What's the excuse for a delay of 30 years?

Unlike many developing countries, India’s economy has been growing at a fast pace, enabling the government to mobilize the necessary resources internally for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. Its dependence on international aid, especially for financial resources is minimal; in fact it has declined bilateral aid from many countries. Despite this, however, the country has failed to achieve most of the goals and targets. The main reasons for this are inadequate funding, inappropriate administration and ignorance of policy and governance issues.

Ultimately however, the failure is due to the absence of inclusiveness in the development model. Instead of enabling people to acquire basic needs such as food, sanitation, water, health care, the government is promoting ‘non-inclusive growth’ and has sought to provide basic services through subsidies with the associated problems of inefficiency and corruption.

Jalal Dhiyab

Representatives of civil society organizations; the signatories of this appeal, condemn the assassination in Basrah on 26 April 2013 of the activist, Jalal Dhiyab; the President of the Supporters Humanitarian Liberty Association, one of the outstanding defenders of human rights in Iraq, who has devoted much of his life to defend black rights for full citizenship, and his legitimate claim to address the culture of discrimination and the rights of black citizens in political representation and participation in public life, draw a road map for the achievement of equality and the promotion of political representation and participation in public life, draw a road map for the achievement of equality and the promotion of citizenship rights for all components in the process of building a democratic system in Iraq.

Jens Martens. (Photo: IISD.)

The UN has launched an extensive worldwide discussion on the new development agenda that is to succeed the Millennium Development Goals in 2015. Jens Martens, long-time observer of international development and environmental policy, cautions in an interview against consultation overkill and calls on NGOs to develop alternatives that go beyond what is currently politically feasible.

In the aftermath of the peoples’ revolutions in the Arab region, an expansion of IMF loan agreements was witnessed in the Arab region; including new loans with Jordan, Morocco, and Yemen, and ongoing negotiations for loans with Tunisia and Egypt. People in the Arab countries face multiple social and economic challenges, including high debt and deficits, a youth unemployment bulge, and deepening inequalities since before the global crisis and the peoples’ uprisings. Today, peoples’ voices in the region are cautioning against the implications of the IMF loans and their austerity conditions. Peoples’ aspirations for a genuinely democratic transition towards social and economic justice are in jeopardy if fiscal adjustment constrains the government’s ability to carry out public investment for the preservation of vital social sectors and essential services, and to create employment, wages and productive sector growth in the real economy.

Bangalore - After independence, we got bureaucracy not democracy, said Bhaskar Rao Gorantla, Research Director of National Social Watch (India). He was addressing a gathering of civil society representatives at a consultation programme organized by the Karnataka Social Watch on administrative reforms.

Listing various structural problems in the administration, he said that although the central and state level administrations have undergone a positive change since independence, the district/local level administrative bodies have not undergone any significant changes.

Roberto Bissio.

Social Watch Coordinator addresses inequalities in his intervention at the "Think Global day" in Brussels on April 19th. 2013.

See the video here.


SUSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER

Submit

Syndicate content